Part 12

"She mustn't attempt to carry a heavy baby," Mr. Wycherly exclaimed anxiously, knitting his brows distressedly.

"Of course not," Mrs. Methuen said decidedly. "She'd wheel the darling up and down Holywell in her pram, or perhaps in South Parks Road, it's so nice and quiet."

"I hope it's not a heavy perambulator," Mr. Wycherly murmured.

"Now don't you worry. No one would dream of setting Jane-Anne to do anything hard or heavy. You wouldn't, I suppose, object to her sitting with the baby on her knee, would you? She's quite a little baby, only six months old and very small."

"No," Mr. Wycherly said doubtfully, "if you think it's quite safe for the baby."

"My dear Mr. Wycherly, Jane-Anne is nearly thirteen."

"I know," he answered humbly, "that I must appear foolishly nervous to you--but a tiny baby always seems to me so brittle, and Jane-Anne herself is--so fragile--she might drop it."

"Don't you worry," Mrs. Methuen repeated consolingly. "Mrs. Cox will take every care of Jane-Anne, and Jane-Anne will take every care of the baby. Besides, it's only once a week, on nursery cleaning day."

Then Mrs. Methuen went to see Mrs. Dew in the kitchen and unfolded the scheme to her.

Mrs. Dew, of cautious Cotswold habit, viewed the plan with marked distrust, but she was too well-trained a servant to do other than seem to acquiesce gratefully in Mrs. Methuen's kind efforts to benefit her niece. So it was settled that Jane Anne should go to Mrs. Cox on Tuesday morning at ten for a couple of hours, as Mrs. Methuen had arranged. The one person who was not consulted was Jane-Anne herself.

Term was over. The men had all gone down, and next day the Methuen household was off to the seaside.

Mrs. Methuen's visit to Mr. Wycherly had been to bid him farewell for a space; and in arranging this for Jane-Anne she felt she had been really helpful.

Mr. Wycherly had consulted Mrs. Methuen on many matters connected with the child. For one thing he had begged her to assist him in developing her sense of humour. Whereupon she sent Jane-Anne both the "Alices," and suggested she should be allowed to see _Punch_ every week. She also gave her "German Popular Stories" and "A Flat Iron for a Farthing." These works were all of absorbing interest and somewhat interrupted Jane-Anne's study of Lord Byron, as had been intended.

_Punch_ she took to her heart at once; not on account of the Immortal Jester's humour, but because of the beautiful ladies depicted by Mr. Du Maurier. These she whole-heartedly admired and set herself to imitate.

All the same, Jane-Anne was getting on. She laughed very often now, sometimes from sheer joy at being in a world where there were people so kind and delightful as Mrs. Methuen and Mr. Wycherly; sometimes because things really did seem funny. She began to realise, too, that it was possible to jest; that Mr. Wycherly often said things that he did not mean; and that it was conceivable that you might love a person with all your heart and soul and yet be perfectly cognisant of their little weaknesses and oddities. Mr. and Mrs. Methuen taught her this, quite unconsciously, while she waited upon them when they lunched with Mr. Wycherly.

Jane-Anne was a quick study.

That night as she waited upon "the master" at dinner, he unfolded to her Mrs. Methuen's plan, and Jane-Anne at once burst into floods of tears, declaring hotly that she'd rather be his parlour-maid than anybody's nurse, "not if it was a prince." That she didn't want to wait upon a horrid little baby when there was her own dear master to wait upon, and she'd promised Master Montagu!

Very gently, Mr. Wycherly explained the arrangement, and when she heard of the uniform the training lost some of its horror.

"I shan't have to go for years and years, shall I?" she asked.

"Certainly not for many years; never at all if you don't like it."

"And I'm to practise on Mrs. Cox's baby?"

"You are to take care--the greatest care--of Mrs. Cox's baby for a short time once a week."

"Do you want me to?"

Candidly, Mr. Wycherly wanted nothing less. He detested schemes for the ultimate employment of Jane-Anne. To him, everything suggested seemed incongruous and infeasible, but he mistrusted his own judgment in practical matters and bowed before the youthful wisdom and general competence of Mrs. Methuen.

"I think," he said guardedly, "that every woman ought to know how to manage a baby."

"I wonder," she said dreamily, "if Lord Byron would approve of it?"

"As we have no means of finding out, let's take it that he will," he answered drily.

"I don't like the name Norland," she objected.

"It will be years before you are even ready to apply for admission to the Norland Institute," said Mr. Wycherly.

"If it's an institution, I'm not going," she said firmly.

"What you have got to do is to see how well you can look after Mrs. Cox's baby."

"I'll do my best, I really will," said Jane-Anne, "and it'll be rather fun to wheel it about, and I shall look very proud and stand-off like Mrs. Methuen's Nannie. I expect people will admire me very much and wonder whose nurse I am."

"That is possible," Mr. Wycherly politely acquiesced.

"Shall I have to make the beds that morning, sir?"

"That, my dear child, is your good aunt's province, not mine."

"Master, dear--whenever you speak of aunt to me, you say she's good, or worthy, or excellent, or sensible--do you say those nice things about me when I'm not there? Do you say 'my excellent Jane-Anne' when you talk about me to Mrs. Methuen? I hope you do--or 'that most sensible girl'--do you?"

"How do you know I ever talk about you at all to Mrs. Methuen?"

Jane-Anne looked rather foolish for a moment, then brightened as she remarked: "But you must to know all about Mrs. Cox's baby and Norland Nurses, and that. I'm sorry, though, that the young gentlemen have all gone down; I'd like them to have seen me wheeling the pram."

"My dear child," exclaimed Mr. Wycherly with real consternation in his voice. "You surely don't suppose that a well-bred undergraduate would be aware of the existence of a little girl wheeling a perambulator."

"They're aware of _my_ existence, anyway, master, dear. I heard one say one day: 'Look what hair that flapper's got.'"

"A most impertinent and ill-bred young man. I hope you felt very angry."

"Angry?" she repeated in a surprised voice. "Oh, no; I was pleased he should admire my hair. It is very long, you know."

Mr. Wycherly groaned, but he said nothing more, only registering a mental vow to the effect that nothing would induce him to allow Jane-Anne to wheel anybody's perambulator once the men came up again. "But she'll be safely at school then," he reflected, "and there will be an end of these ridiculous schemes."

Mrs. Dew discussed the question with her niece during their supper in the housekeeper's room.

"I don't fancy the notion much, myself," she said. "A nurse as is worth having for a nurse is born so, and I don't see as any institution will either make or mar her. Bein' a fine lady with someone else to do your nurseries'd suit you well enough, I've no doubt, but whether you'd ever learn to do _your_ part is more than mortal can say."

"Aunt, what do you do with a baby if it cries?"

"Turn it face downwards on your knee an' pat it gentle--ten to one it's got wind, poor little soul, and that'll break it up. Many's the time I've held you that way an' you starin' at the carpet with those great eyes of yours as good as gold. But you won't have much nursing to do--it's wheelin' that you'll be doin', an' mind as you don't let the wheel go over the kerb. Whatever it is you're doin', Jane-Anne, for mercy's sake think about that thing, and don't go dreamin' of poetry books and such foolhardy nonsense."

Tuesday came and it poured with rain.

Jane-Anne duly made her timid appearance at Mrs. Cox's and was shown into Mrs. Cox's study, where the baby sat propped up in her pram while her mother pushed her back and forth to amuse her. Mrs. Cox stayed for a little, then the baby showed signs of wanting to go to sleep, so she was laid down and Jane-Anne was instructed to continue the gentle to and fro movement till she "went off," and Mrs. Cox departed to see to some household matters elsewhere, leaving the door open.

The Cox baby was fair and plump and pretty, and appeared an entirely exemplary infant, for in five minutes she was fast asleep.

Jane-Anne stopped pushing the perambulator to and fro, and sat down to look round. There was a book-case at one side of the fireplace and its two lowest shelves were full of bound volumes of _Mr. Punch_. In a moment, her quick eyes had taken in this pleasing fact and she had one of the big flat books open on her knee. She looked at the pictures and read the legends beneath them with great content for a little while, always, however, with one eye on the perambulator and ears alert to catch the faintest movement from its occupant.

Presently there was a little stir and the indescribable soft sound a baby makes when it is just waking up. From the room above came sundry bumps and scrapings that proclaimed the cleaning to be in full swing. She darted to the perambulator and looked in; the baby, rosy and warm and adorable looked up at her and smiled. It was too much for Jane-Anne. She forgot Mrs. Cox's instructions that she was on no account to lift the baby out when it woke, but to call her. She seized the small delicious bundle that stretched and cuddled against her and sat down on the low seat close by the book-case.

Baby began to whimper.

Jane-Anne repeated "See-Saw, Margery Daw," but the baby evidently was impervious to the charms of poetry, and the whimper grew a little more decided.

Then there flashed into Jane-Anne's perturbed mind her aunt's instructions: "Turn it face downwards on your knee and pat it gentle." No sooner thought of than done, and it was, apparently, quite successful.

Jane-Anne had just got to a very interesting part of _Punch_, and she longed to return to it. As the baby was evidently quiet and happy, she felt she might go back to her study of the Great Jester--nurses always were reading--even while they wheeled their prams--so it was all right. She kept one hand on the baby's back to steady it and tried to hold up the volume of _Punch_ with the other, but _Punch_ was heavy and she was not very successful.

Presently a brilliant thought struck her: If _Punch_ was open on the top of the baby, it would fulfil a double purpose, keep the baby from rolling off her knee, and amuse her, Jane-Anne.

It really was a very fascinating _Punch_.

For a moment Miss Cox was perfectly quiet. The heavy weight across her back petrified her with astonishment. She tried to lift her head to see what it all meant, but some hard substance caught her just in the nape of the neck and prevented her doing anything of the kind.

Such an indignity was not to be borne for an instant.

Miss Cox filled her lungs as well as she could, considering how compressed she was, and gave vent to a good hearty roar of rage and grief that such impertinent persons should be left loose in a naughty world.

Jane-Anne absently patted the pages of _Mr. Punch_ and read on absorbedly.

There was a pause in the cleansing operations overhead. A door was opened hastily and quick steps descended from above. At the same instant, another door was opened just across the hall, and Mrs. Cox and the nurse met at the open study door to behold the cause of the uproar.

Jane-Anne was never very clear as to what happened during the next three minutes. All she knew was that _Mr. Punch_ fell violently on the floor to the ultimate detriment of his back--the baby was seized from her and two people hurled indignant reproaches at her while the baby, once more in a position to inflate properly, filled the air with angry wails.

Of course Jane-Anne wept too. She made no excuses, for there were none to be made, and this rather disarmed Mrs. Cox, who was kindly and gentle, and finding that only the baby's feelings were hurt, recovered her sense of humour, laughed, and bade Jane-Anne go back to her aunt as she was evidently not fitted yet for an under-nurse.

Nurse, with the baby clasped safely in her arms, had already stalked upstairs in high dudgeon.

Soon after eleven o'clock, a meek, draggled, tear-stained Jane-Anne crept in at the side-door in Holywell. Mrs. Dew was in the front of the house "turning out" the dining-room, as her niece had observed as she passed the windows.

Upstairs she flew and reached Mr. Wycherly's study door undetected. She looked particularly forlorn and miserable, for she wore her aunt's macintosh, a voluminous purple garment much too large for her. She had left her umbrella at the Cox's in the shame of her hasty exit, and the heavy rain had beaten upon her face, mingling with her tears. Very timidly she knocked.

Mr. Wycherly had quick ears, and he knew that knock.

"Come in, my child; they didn't need you long," he said, always with the same kind welcome in his voice.

Jane-Anne shut the door softly and rushed across the room to throw herself on her knees at his side.

"I'm sent away," she cried tragically; "dismissed, disgraced; I don't know what aunt will say."

"What in the world has occurred?" Mr. Wycherly said quietly. "Take off that wet macintosh; look what a pool it's making. Get up, you poor, silly child; there, that's better--now come and sit on my knee and tell me exactly what happened."

Jane-Anne flung herself upon Mr. Wycherly, buried her wet face in his neck and sobbed out:

"I read _Punch_ on the top of the baby."

At this most unexpected revelation Mr. Wycherly fairly jumped.

"You mean you sat on the baby?" he cried, aghast.

"No, it was _Punch_ sat on the baby and it didn't like it. It yelled."

"Do explain--your statements are so confused--what _do_ you mean?"

"I mean," she continued, "I opened _Punch_ on the baby and read it--it was only a minute, but I was so interested, and I've heard them say that it doesn't hurt to let a healthy baby cry for a minute--and all the nurses read, I've seen them hundreds of times; but they heard and came flying all in a hurry and were so cross, and Mrs. Cox said I needn't ever come back."

It was well that Jane-Anne couldn't see Mr. Wycherly's face, which was lighted up by a smile of immense satisfaction; but what he _said_ sounded very grave.

"I fear you have not been very honest, little Jane-Anne."

She sat up and looked at him.

"Honest! I've told you exactly what happened."

"Certainly, you've been honest to me, but what about Mrs. Cox?"

Jane-Anne hung her head.

"The baby slept at first," she said, "and it was so dull and all the _Punches_ were there--and I got so interested----"

"You've not done what you undertook to do, that was to look after the baby. Mrs. Cox didn't ask you there to read her _Punches_ did she?"

"She'll never have me again, she said so."

"I'm not surprised."

"What will Mrs. Methuen say?"

"I can't think."

"And aunt?"

"I don't think your--aunt" (Mr. Wycherly was just going to say "excellent," but restrained himself) "will be much surprised."

Jane-Anne sighed deeply. "I shall never be a Norland Nurse now," she said sadly. "I've lost my character."

"I'm afraid you have."

"Do _you_ mind very much?"

"Upon my soul," said Mr. Wycherly, "I don't care a brass farthing."

*CHAPTER XV*

*THE PHILOSOPHY OF BEAUTY*

"The foundation of beauty is a reasonable order addressed to the imagination through the senses." PHILEBUS.

The last time Mrs. Methuen called in Holywell, just before she went away, she left a ladies' paper, _The Peeress_.

Jane-Anne fell upon it instantly and carried it off to her room. She had never seen such a paper before and her mind was in a curiously receptive state. Lord Byron's Hebrew melodies rang in her ears, and she immensely enjoyed herself when she went to bed at night by standing in front of the looking-glass in her night gown, with her thick black hair streaming round her like a cloud, while she repeated solemnly:--

"She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes. Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies."

She quite agreed with the poet that "gaudy day" was a little unkind to her appearance. She was too brown; moreover, she was no longer pale, and this rather vexed her. She had an idea that Lord Byron would have preferred her pale. Still she felt that her hair was quite satisfactory and shook it round her, only grieving that the glass was far too small to show it all. There was not a cheval-glass in Mr. Wycherly's house. But from time to time she caught sight of her big plait (Mrs. Methuen had persuaded Mrs. Dew to have Jane-Anne's hair done in one thick plait instead of two) in shop windows, with the profoundest satisfaction.

"One shade the more, one ray the less."

She hoped she had rays in her hair, but was not quite sure.

"Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling-place."

To obtain the "thoughts serenely sweet" it was but necessary to adopt the Bruey pose, and, behold, the thing was done.

Mere words cannot express the comfort that poem was to Jane-Anne. Up and down her room she sailed, "clothed on in majesty," an unbleached calico night gown, and her long black hair.

"The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent."

At such moments she adored Lord Byron for writing such beautiful things about her, and was perfectly happy.

Mrs. Methuen's magazine opened up new possibilities. From its pages she learned that no one need despair of their personal appearance. Had nature been niggardly in the matter of hair, a hundred artists in coiffure advertised their aid. Was one's complexion not quite to one's liking, there were skin specialists galore who undertook to remedy any facial defects. In fact the journal was a regular _vade mecum_ as to the cult of beauty, and such pleasing visions were not conjured up by words alone. There were pictures in plenty of lovely ladies in every stage of lack of attire and with every variety of "transformation." Radiant beings with enormous eyes, preternaturally minute mouths, and figures so slender that one wondered if they ever had anything to eat.

And every one of them had wavy hair.

Now Jane-Anne's hair waved just after it was unplaited, but it was naturally quite straight, soft, fine, abundant hair, growing very prettily round her face with an upward sweep from her forehead.

It was all very well to walk in beauty like the night. It was comparatively easy to imagine one realised Lord Byron's conception of the Hebrew beauty. But here much more was expected.

Jane-Anne was certainly slim, the unkindly accurate might have described her as decidedly thin; but, even so, she was not shaped at all like the ladies depicted in _The Peeress_. Her legs were long and her hips were small, but--"I seem too thick through," she said to herself.

There was a whole page of replies to anxious students of the Art of Beauty. "Pietista" sought to improve a throat "discoloured and too thin." "Butterfly" complained of "sagging lines beneath chin and around mouth."

Jane-Anne flew to the glass but could discover nothing of the kind, and was comforted.

"Troubled" wanted to know how to "colour dark hair a bright auburn," but Jane-Anne passed this by. She was perfectly satisfied with the colour of her hair. What she did long for was a box of "Magnolia Bloom powder," which _The Peeress_ assured "Amabelle" would lend to the countenance "the soft sheen of a butterfly's wing."

But this desirable appearance could only be arrived at by the expenditure of eighteen-pence, and Jane-Anne possessed but three-halfpence in the world. The other beautifiers cost such vast sums as excluded them altogether from her scheme of possibilities.

Eighteenpence: one shilling and sixpence. Once Lord Dursley had given her a new two-shilling bit and her aunt allowed her to keep it. But, alas! it was spent long ago, and Lord Dursley was not very likely to come to Oxford that summer.

She would consult Mr. Wycherly. She had infinite faith in his sympathy, his wisdom, and his resource. She would show him this enchanting journal and see what he thought of it. Perhaps he, who read so many books, was already familiar with its pages.

She carried it with her when she went to bid him good-night. It had become an established custom for Jane-Anne to bid him good-night at considerable length.

"Have you ever read _The Peeress_, sir?" she asked, laying it on his table on the top of an open book.

"Never," said Mr. Wycherly. "Is this the lady?" He opened it, turned the pages somewhat hastily, and actually blushed.

"My dear child!" he exclaimed, "where did you get hold of this extremely shameless production?"

"Mrs. Methuen always takes it, sir; it's a ladies' paper. She left this number here."

"Mrs. Methuen, that refined and charming young lady! Surely, my dear, you are mistaken."

"No, sir, really. Lots of ladies always read it, aunt said so. I wanted to take it back to her lest she should want it, but aunt says she gets it every week, and she didn't think it mattered."

"That being the case," Mr. Wycherly remarked, hastily shutting the magazine, "it is evidently not intended for me, and you had better take it away."

"Oh, sir," Jane-Anne pleaded, "do look at the pictures. They're such beautiful ladies."

But Mr. Wycherly steadfastly averted his gaze from the offending magazine, exclaiming:

"Beautiful! My dear child, how can you apply that dignified and really expressive adjective to anything so dreadful? Have you ever seen any human being who in the least resembled the extremely indelicate creatures depicted in this paper?"

"No, sir, but I'd like to. They've all got such curly hair."

"Most of them," Mr. Wycherly said severely, "appear to wear very little else. We must show you some really beautiful pictures, Jane-Anne, and then perhaps you will realise the worthlessness of these."

She felt that it was an unpropitious moment for the introduction of "Magnolia Bloom toilet powder." Mr. Wycherly's attitude was strangely unsympathetic. Nevertheless she was full of tenacity of purpose, so she said, in what she was assured Bruey would have considered a "winning" voice:

"Please, sir, is there anything I could do to earn one-and-six?"

Mr. Wycherly laughed. "I think you have earned it many times over by all the things you do for me. Would you like it now?"

He took a handful of silver from his pocket and pushed the coins toward her, saying:

"I wish they were new ones. I always think all the new silver ought to be kept for boys and girls--but if you're in a hurry--perhaps you'd rather have it now."

"Thank you very much, sir," said Jane-Anne; but her voice was not joyful, as one might have expected.

She felt rather uncomfortable.

He had never questioned her as to why she wanted it.

"Are you sure it's enough?" he asked kindly.

"Quite sure, sir, and I'm very much obliged."

Mr. Wycherly looked at her curiously. Why was her voice so listless and flat?

She dropped the coins into the pocket of her dress and stood before him, rubbing one slender foot over the other, her eyes downcast, quite unlike the eager, chattering child he loved.

"Good-night, sir," said Jane-Anne.